Cognitive Psychology Chapter 7 Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps

Analog code

(Depictive representation/pictorial representation), a mental representation that closely resembles the physical object - Responses to mental images are frequently similar to responses to physical objects

Cognitive maps

(Spatial cognition); where we are in our environment - Our thoughts about spatial issues - Helps when estimating the distance between 2 locations

Propositional code

(descriptive representation), is an abstract, language-like representation; storage is neither visual nor spatial, and it does not physically resemble the original stimulus - Mental images consist of a symbolic network of relations

Hirtle and Mascolo: The categories we create can have a large influence on our distance estimates

- Learn hypothetical map of a town - Estimate distance between pairs of locations - People tended to shift each location closer to other sites that belonged to the same category (e.g., government buildings).

Mental rotation

3D rotation of unknown objects » Shepard and Metzler » larger angles of rotation take longer - 2D rotation of known objects (letters: R) » Cooper and Shepard » advance information can eliminate rotation time

Alignment heuristic

A series of separate geographic structures will be remembered as being more lined up than they really are. - Categorizable locations - Philadelphia is at the same latitude with Rome, Italy

Imagery debate

An important controversy: do mental images resemble perception (using an analog code), or do they resemble language (using a propositional code)

Moar & Bower cogn maps & shapes (angles) study of Cambridge, England

Asked people to estimate the angles formed by the intersections of 2 streets, without using a map - Participants showed a clear tendency to "regularize" the angles so that they were more like 90angles - 90-degree-angle heuristic

Distance Estimate & Category membership: Friedman & colleagues

Asked students to estimate the distance between various North America cities - Students from Canada, U.S., and Mexico judged that distances were greater when they were separated by an international border - Border bias (estimation for distance is greater on different sides, not on same)

Distance Estimates: Intervening cities; Thorndyke: study map of hypothetical region, reproduce it

Distance Estimates and Number of Intervening Cities: - 0, 1, 2, or 3 other cities along the route between two cities - Estimate the distance between specified pairs of cities - The number of intervening cities had a clear-cut influence on distance estimates - Distance estimates reflect travel time rather than absolute distance

Tversky (heuristics): cognitive maps & relative position

Images are distorted by verbal knowledge

Imagery can enhance perception

Imagining speed up perception - Faster RT's

Border bias

In cognitive maps, the finding that people tend to estimate that the distance between two locations-on different sides of a geographic border- are larger than two location that are the same distance apart but on the same side of a geographic border.

Mental imagery or (imagery)

Mental representation of stimuli when those stimuli are not physically present. Sensory receptors do not receive any input when a mental image is created - Perception requires bottom-up processing but this utilizes top-down processing - Helps to identify the properties of objects

Visual imagery interference: Segal & Fusella

People had more problems detecting the physical stimulus when the mental image was in the same sensory mode (imagery functions as an internal stimulus signal) • E.g. when participants had been imagining the shape of a tree, they had trouble detecting the small blue arrow. The mental image "interfered" with real visual stimulus. • In contrast, when they had been imagining the sound of an oboe, they had no trouble reporting that they saw the arrow. After all, the imagined sound and the arrow - a visual stimulus - represented 2 different sensory modes

Landmark effect

People tend to provide shorter distance estimates when traveling to a landmark, an important geographical location, rather than a non-landmark - Prominent destination seem closer than less important destinations

Rotation heuristic

People tend to remember a figure that is slightly tilted as being either more vertical or more horizontal than it really is.

Symmetry heuristic

People tend to remember figures as being more symmetrical and regular than they truly really are.

Heuristics

Problem solving strategies that are usually correct - Can lead to cognitive errors - Can cause us to miss important details and fail to pay attention to bottom-up information

Stevens & Coupe (comparisons of cogn maps in respects to relative position)

Relative east/west and north/south judgments of cities - e.g.} Rome and Philadelphia

Cooper & Shepard

Same or different with R rotations. Mental Rotation Task (MRT). Percieve-match-execute. More degrees you have to rotate, longer it takes with mental imagery 2D

Scanning mental images

The longer one has to scan or mentally scan across an image increases ones reaction times - Longer distance= longer scanning times

Spatial cognition

The mental processes involved in (1) "thoughts about cognitive maps", (2) memory for the "world that we navigate", and (3) keeping track of objects in a "spatial array"

Situated Cognition Approach

The proposal that a person makes use of information in the immediate environment or situation; thus, knowledge typically depends on the context surrounding the person

Size on an image

focusing on detail in a mental image is like focusing on detail in a perceptual image - "Zoom-in" on mental image to detect detail= Ex} focus on the fly next to the rabbit to detect detail